


(within) The Tale of the Broken Urn

by wei



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-15
Updated: 2011-11-15
Packaged: 2017-10-26 03:01:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/277933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wei/pseuds/wei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hinata's mother writes a letter to her daughter.</p><p>Written for the "journal entry" assignment at write-dattebayo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(within) The Tale of the Broken Urn

[decoded from the writings of Hyuga Akari, the Tale of the Broken Urn]

Dearest daughter,  
If all goes well, in several months you will have a sibling. It is a peculiarity of the Main House that this should cause both joy and sorrow. The joy swells up from a primal and ineradicable part of human nature. The sorrow comes from the knowledge that should your sibling be born, it would force you to repeat your father’s tragedy and pit sibling against sibling and parent against child. When I told your father, I saw the conflict between the joy in my heart and the sorrow in my mind play out on his face and bearing.

I think you would make an excellent older sister. Already, I can see in you a patient and giving nature. Retirement from active duty has given me ample time to write and watch and think. In the afternoon, I watched you through the walls while you played with your cousins. The youngest ones toddled behind you, knowing that you will wait for them. A loud argument over a doll quieted after a few words from you. You gave a crying child with a scraped knee a hug and soon he was running around again. Unlike your father, I do not fear any more that Headship will be more difficult than you can handle. It is the cooperation and judgment of your peers and not your elders that will matter most, and for this, you are building a firm foundation.

I do not think we will tell anyone of our news yet. Your father and I need time to prepare. Purportedly, this is a house that cannot hide secrets for long, but I have always found that small misdirections work well. It is perhaps the result of the more modern tendency to encourage fighting talent over the more subtle ninja arts. We still teach our children poetry, but no longer teach how allusions and metaphors can convey information while also concealing it. Few pay attention to the intimate talk between husband and wife or a bedtime story told by mother to daughter. I hope, however, that you will learn to hear more than the straightforward meanings of words.

When you are old enough to decrypt the stories I have written for you, I hope you do not make the mistake to think of these letters to you as the stories’ “true meaning.” These stories that I am telling to you now and that I hope you remember in the future and pass them on to your children are what matters most. I want these stories to teach you that service need not need to mean slavery. I want to teach you that strength can be measured in many ways. I want you to know how precious you are to me.

Still, I encode these letters within the pages of the stories for you because you may find use for a more practical guidebook for leading our clan. Certainly, when I married your father and found myself thrust into this new role, I felt like I could do nothing but fumble blindly and hope not to ruin this family. Every new development was unexpected and unprepared for, and in many ways, this still is the case. However, I have learned to take on this role, as I know you will when the time comes.


End file.
